Monday, January 23, 2012

See what I'm doing here? That's right. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Because I SURVIVED MY SEMESTER PROJECTS! And my world--for the next two precious, precious weeks--is all about The Nothing. My book stack a mile high? I'm gonna SMASH that thing. It's going to be so beautiful being able to read without feeling guilty about The Things That I Should Be Doing that I may just explode into bliss-pieces. My coffee cup is bottomless, my flat is clean, and my biggest source of stress will be about whether or not I want to tackle that new mega-recipe today or tomorrow. Even my LAUNDRY is caught up--that's how I rewarded myself on Saturday for a job well done. Hours and hours of delightful laundry and watching the overflowing hamper gradually empty like so many rain barrels in a drought. I feel like a million bucks.

I'm not going to lie, though--the work on these latest projects was actually...okay. It felt GOOD. Was it because the projects were far more difficult than anything we were expected to do last year, so were therefore more rewarding? Was it because the work I produced is something that doesn't make me want to crawl into a hole with embarrassment, maybe just hide under the bed? Or was it because Aya stayed over for a week and we worked from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every day and survived on a diet of energy drinks, wasabi peas, and Japanese pop music? I don't know! But not once did I think, 'I can't do this.'

Of course, it's hard NOT to have fun when we have Aya playing yeejay (that's my new term for a youtube-deejay). We played the below song at least ten times a day. It's awesome. You have to at least watch the first half of this video. It is SO. FUNNY. I can't decide my favourite part. It is in the first fifteen seconds, when the second singer leaps into the frame in slow motion, her hair floating in the breeze? Is it at 0:58 when the main singer swirls and her outfit changes? It's really impossible to say. But oh it makes me belly laugh every time:

Aya also taught me about Japanese Radio Exercises (or Radio Taiso), which is something every person in Japan knows. That's right. Every person. That's what Aya told me and Aya doesn't lie. She says they grow up doing this before school every day. Families do it together in the morning. 'To wake up,' she says. I'm not surprised. The mornings we did it, the injuries I sustained were enough to get my blood flowing:

And I know what you're thinking, because you only watched the first twenty seconds: Rona, this looks EASY. Any stretching done to piano music canNOT hurt you. Well. You certainly didn't see Part Two, designed for the younger Japanese set. When Aya and I would get to this half of the exercises, she'd be swooping around like a tiny, graceful ballerina, all stretchy and petite, while a half-beat behind, my giantess arms swung around like so many gorillas in the jungle, my floor-scraping knuckles knocking things from their shelves with every twirl.

It was awesome. I still like to do them.

Alright, off I go! It's time to READ! I may even indulge in a THIRD cup of coffee. I KNOW! Someone slow me down, I'm on a crazy train!